I’ve distro hopped quite a bit over the last few years. I’ve realized recently that I tend to gravitate toward KDE Plasma as a desktop environment, but I don’t take advantage of the customization as much as I could.
As I sit here looking through the KDE Plasma settings I’m curious to hear what are some favorite things to change in any DE. Please share what you like to do when you get a vanilla install. Do you have a favorite icon pack? Do you have a favorite theme? Any particular widgets that you would recommend?
I’m sure there is more out there than I can think of. Please share!
Edit: I can’t respond to everyone, but this is a great discussion. So many good suggestions and ideas. Keep them coming!
On top of @psilotop@lemmy.world’s bit about monitors today being bigger, multi-monitor setups are also more common. I haven’t used a single monitor system as one of my main PCs (work or personal) in at least a decade. Being able to “slam” down and left to hit Start is a big part of why the corner was originally chosen, but if that’s just gonna get you to some random position on the bottom of an adjacent monitor, you’re back to requiring mouse precision, and the button may as well be moved more toward the center to get average travel distance down.
That’s fair enough, though sticky corners are a thing, and my multi monitor layout it would still work (big ultra wide main on bottom, three smaller above)
But I think there’s even value in it just staying in the same place. One big frustration I have with modern UI design is shit moving around, often trying to anticipate what you want, but I’m lost looking for it the last damned place it was. The start button moving a little left and right isn’t nearly as bad, but it’s along the same lines
True. I typically pin all the apps I regularly use with spacers to categorize them, so there’s maybe half an icon of left/right movement maximum with the odd unpinned app at the end, but I understand that trades in clutter others may not find desirable and doesn’t fit all workflows.